Light and Shadow
by donutsandcoffee
Summary: AU, Kingdom Hearts version. Oneshot. "The closer you gets to the light, the greater your shadow becomes."


**A/N:** This can be seen as a Gen fic (I focus more on the putting the Kingdom Hearts story into xxxHOLiC character) though it kind of implies donuts (Can't. Resist. Temptation. To imply. Donuts.). You don't have to know KH story to read this, I hope.

Well, before I'm turning this into a full rant, enjoy!

Edit: rewrote this story because apparently 5 years ago, my English was painful to read.

* * *

**Light and Shadow**

* * *

Watanuki Kimihiro never liked darkness. He never liked deserted cities, either, something that darkness was usually associated with.

And yet, here he was: in the middle of a deserted city he couldn't name, Watanuki walked, slowly but steadily. He had many reasons to hate dark, deserted cities, but among those, on the top of his list, was _them_.

Watanuki could feel _their_ eyes on him. _Again_. He sighed as he paced faster, hoping those things would slow down and, with some divine intervention, suddenly forget about him—

Well, no such luck. The heartless leaped from their place right at the time when he jumped, just narrowly avoiding the ambush. He only needed to think about it and immediately, the keyblade appeared on his right hand.

Without hesitation, he swung it.

His mind went back to his meeting with that woman—Yuuko Ichihara, wasn't it?—and he bit his lower lip.

* * *

_Watanuki walked in, expecting to see absolutely no one and nothing at all—after all, what could he possibly find in an old castle in the middle of… nowhere?_

_But instead, he found a woman. A witch, judging from her look. She was in the main room, the low light accentuated the curves of her lying body, smoke swirled in the air around them. His eyes followed the smoke, and he saw it come from the pipe she held elegantly by her smooth, right hand._

_He gulped. Was it him, or was this woman really… intimidating?_

"_I see. Watanuki Kimihiro… the keyblade chosen one."_

_For a lack of better words, Watanuki only stared at her in shock._

_She smiled. "Yuuko Ichihara," she answered his unvoiced question, "though it is not my real name…"_

* * *

He swung his keyblade as fast as he could, evading attacks while countering it almost perfectly. _Almost_. He winced when one of the heartless charged and threw itself on his chest, catapulting him two feet on the air.

He groaned inwardly, sprung on his feet as if nothing had happened, and swung his keyblade again.

* * *

"_Who are you?"_

_The witch smiled. It reminded Watanuki of wolves, baring its fangs to its prey, and he felt a shiver run down his spine. "Who I am is of no importance," she finally spoke up, "what you may know now is what I do, which is to grant wishes."_

"…_wishes?"_

"_Wishes," she repeated, "any wishes from the deepest of your heart. Though you must always remember that every wish must be paid with something of an equal value; no more, and no less."_

_He cleared his throat, trying to gain his confidence. "And… how is that more important than who you are?"_

_She laughed, and her laughter rang throughout the room. "Ah, being persistent, are we?" She said between laughter, "but as I told you, it is of no importance. Should not you be thinking of your wishes right now?"_

_She smiled again, and Watanuki gulped. This woman really __**was**__ intimidating._

* * *

Another swing of his keyblade. This fight was getting absolutely nowhere and, oh god, was it just him or were those heartless are getting faster? Could this time be… his end?

He mentally scolded himself for thinking that. He knew he could survive from this one, just like other times before this. He knew he could. He knew he _must_.

He narrowed his eyes at the heartless, and for a second, he wanted to laugh at the irony. To think that he was once turned into one of them, a heartless… Of course, those time had passed.

* * *

"_I..." he paused for a while, __choosing his words carefully__, "I think I wish to know why. Why are those... those _things_ following me around? And why __did__ this—keyblade you say?—choose me, instead of anyone else? Why... why _me_?"_

_She __smiled knowingly__. "Those 'things', you mean...__the__ heartless? And the nobodies?"_

"'_Heartless'? 'Nobodies'?"_

"_To put it simply, heartless are something that are made from darkness of people's hearts. And there are nobodies too... they are the empty vessels—strong ones—from which its heart were taken and turned into a heartless. This may mean that once a heartless born from a person with a strong heart, a nobody will be born too."_

_Well, that just answered everything…_not_. It only raised more questions, to be honest._

"_And they choose to follow __**me**__, instead of anyone else?" Watanuki __couldn't help raising his voice,__ "__t__hen the keyblade chose me, too. What a wonderful coincidence."_

"_Ah, Watanuki, beware of your spoken words," __she suddenly said, her voice lwo__, "there is no such thing as coincidence. There is only hitsuzen."_

_There was a pause. _"_Hitsuzen?"_

"_Yes. Hitsuzen. Oh, and Watanuki?"_

"_Yes, Ichihara-san?"_

"_You have a strong heart."_

* * *

Watanuki fell again for god-knows how many times, and he was sure his knee was bruised. He coughed this time, trying his best to clear his sight by rubbing his right eye… and before he knew it, he felt something hit his forehead—the heartless, certainly—and he lost his grip on his keyblade. Another heartless leaped and threw it away.

"Beautiful," he sarcastically commented, rushing to get the keyblade as fast as he could. His entire body was aching, his left knee hurt like hell, and when he finally stopped running to pick his valuable blade up, he found himself _trying_ to do so.

His right hand was sore. Well, at least that explains why he lost his grip in the first place.

He decided to pick it by his left hand and he realized that there was no way he could win if he fought with his left hand—he'd already been playing a losing game with his right hand. There was only one way to survive: run. Run away.

And so he did. He ran like he'd never run before, jerking his legs and sucked in as much oxygen and—amidst all this, he noticed the moonlight.

The moon had been covered by some tall buildings previously, but in the direction he was going, some of the light could penetrate through the gaps between the buildings. Out of instinct—self-preservation, he absent-mindedly thought—he ran towards the light. He could feel the heartless still following him.

The words of Yuuko Ichihara rang in his head again.

"_And Watanuki, before you go... please make sure you remember this."_

"_Yes, Ichihara-san?"_

He ran through some alleyways before finally finding himself running on an open field, the large moon shone brightly above his head. He could see everything around him now, and while he was still running, he gained enough courage to look back.

He could see the heartless twitched and started to move (even more) bizarrely, and her words echoed in his head.

_The closer you get to the light..._

The heartless started to stick to each other, forming a bigger version of them. His eyes widened in fright as he eyes followed his shadow, stretched because of the moon light and its end disappeared at the now big and joined heartless.

_...the greater your shadow becomes._

_Large_. That was the first thing he thought when he ran into the large rock, the thought quickly followed by: _how could I have not seen that_? And ended with _I'm screwed_. Well, this was it. This was his end. He should've remembered her words sooner, not idiotically running into a great source of light…

He closed his eyes. He knew the heartless was getting larger and larger each second. This was it; he had a good life and he had done so many struggles. Now was the time to end everything and all he could do was giving in...it was pretty ironic, after all his struggles to live and now he just gave in and, well, die…

Except, he didn't die.

He could hear slashes of swords. It sounded eerily familiar, almost like the sound of a keyblade coming in contact with a heartless… but his keyblade couldn't be slashing by its own, and… no, there wouldn't be someone else, he was alone, there was no way there could be any help—

"Oi, are you just going to sit there and sleep?"

Watanuki jerked his eyes open and his brain stopped thinking.

A person wearing an all black outfit standing in front of him, both hands holding keyblades. The keyblades were different from his, at least the model or something, but he knew they were keyblades. He gripped the blades tightly, the heartless were backing off a bit, probably sensing the real power this person had.

Watanuki gulped. He realized that this stranger's appearance fit the description of a nobody by Yuuko Ichihara, which meant that this 'person' was, actually, a highly intelligent nobody. He could think and plan and almost like a normal person... except that nobody didn't have any hearts. Meaning, he had _no _emotion. At all.

The surprise didn't stop there, either. The nobody was _skillful_. He swung his keyblades perfectly and efficiently—there were no missed attacks, and all swings were well-aimed with no useless moves made. He single-handedly turned the table; despite the number of heartless fighting against him, the nobody was obviously winning.

He once again gulped, mentally noted himself to pinch his cheek. This _must _be a dream.

Yet it wasn't. After the nobody finished the last heartless left, Watanuki carefully approached him. It was apparent that this nobody wanted to protect him, but why?

_Well, whatever the reason, I have to thank him,_ he thought. He touched the nobody's shoulder slowly to call him...

The nobody turned back. Watanuki saw his face—it was stoic and expressionless, though calm and serene at the same time. Even without words and expressions, the nobody seemed to make him more peaceful, his anxiety had suddenly gone...

...until the nobody said, "IDIOT."

Watanuki frowned. He didn't just hear that, did he?

"I—I'm sorry, I didn't hear you—"

"I said _you_ are an _idiot_. What kind of person trying to ran into an open field when chased by those many heartless? Dumbass."

Just like, the moment was gone. Watanuki was immediately irritated at the blatant words and before he knew it, he raised his voice.

"OH, I'M _SORRY _that I am not familiar with the 'How-to-Run-From-Thousands-of-Heartless' book!" He crossed his arms, "gods, what is it with your manners? _You_ arethe one who was STUPID, appeared in front of me out of nowhere and—WHY ARE YOU PLUGGING YOUR EARS?"

"You are too loud," the nobody answered simply.

"YOU IMBECILE BAST—"

"Doumeki Shizuka," he interrupted.

Watanuki stopped his rant, blinking. "Eh?"

"That's my name," he explained.

"Oh," he stupidly replied and, not knowing what else to say, "Watanuki Kimihiro."

"I know."

"I DON'T CARE WHETER YOU KNOW OR—"

"Ssh," he interrupted again, hissing, making a 'be quiet' gesture with a 'you idiot' expression much to Watanuki's irritation, "we will attract the heartless even more if you keep shouting and flailing like that."

"I don't flail!" Watanuki hissed back, "and jeez, of course I know."

"Hn," the nobody—Doumeki—commented, his keyblades disappeared in flash of light. Oh, and speaking of keyblade...

"Why—how could you..." he struggled to find the right word, "how could you wield the keyblade? I mean, I thought the keyblade can only be used by the chosen one and..." he paused for a while, "_I _am the chosen one. How could you wield it? Moreover, _two_ keyblades? I only have _one_!"

There seemed to be a hint of realization in Doumeki's face, though it was nowhere far from his expressionless face. _Of course he's expressionless; after all, he doesn't have heart..._ "Ah, these keyblades... I don't know. I guess they choose me as well."

"And I thought _I _was the chosen one."

"How about the chosen _ones_?" Doumeki suggested.

"And I am equal to you? Please, I'd rather not be chosen."

"Believe me. It hurts me more than it hurts you."

"WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING YOU JERK?"

He grabbed Doumeki's arm, ready to pull him and strangle him with all his power when he felt something weird bubbling up in his chest, something he couldn't put his finger on, something he couldn't name…

He somehow felt..._complete_?

Watanuki quickly erased the thought in his mind. _No way, _his inner-self screamed, _no way._ He released Doumeki's arm and turned back without saying anything. He could hear an indistinct sound behind his back and before he knew it, Doumeki was gone.

As he picked his deserted keyblade, he couldn't help thinking that he would meet Doumeki again. He didn't know how. He just knew.

Maybe this what she meant as hitsuzen.

* * *

"_The greater my shadow...becomes? What does my shadow have anything to do with my situation right now?" He asked in puzzlement. The witch smiled knowledgeably._

"_You will understand when the time comes and you will understand soon, I assure you. Also, please remember the fact that you are not whole."_

"_I...am not...whole?"_

"_Yet. But do not worry. As I said, when the time has come, you will become whole once again."_

_Two girls entered the room and politely escorted him to the door. He opened the door, ready to leave...but he turned at her again._

"_Ichihara-san? How can you be so sure?"_

_Yuuko Ichihara smiled. "In this world, there is no such thing as coincidence. There is only hitsuzen."_

_With that, she took another sip from her sake bottle and he knew their conversation was over. He walked out the door with only one thing preoccupied his mind._

_Hitsuzen.__  
_

* * *

**A/N:** Hope you enjoy this fic cause I do when writing it :). It's a poor thing that I couldn't include Himawari though, I couldn't find the right place to put her in the story.

Well, to clear things up (if you don't get it):

- Watanuki is chosen by the keyblade, meaning he's Sora in KH. Sort of.

- Instead of spirits, he is chased by heartless.

- Doumeki is Watanuki's nobody.

- Yuuko is...Yuuko. Well, she rocks; her cool presence and words are the whole point I started this fic (I really can imagine Yuuko saying 'the closer you get to the light' thing).

I decided not to include the story when Watanuki turned into a heartless because it would make the story too long and lost its momentum.

Anyways, please review! I always LOVE reviews XD!


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